- The California Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday announced availability of new 30-year fixed-rate loans for first-time homebuyers at 4 percent interest. - Sacramento-area property values collectively tumbled another $10 billion from 2009 to 2010 – about 12 percent of losses suffered statewide by property owners, according to new statistics from state tax authorities.
Miriam Nunez walks her dog in Capital Village in Rancho Cordova. The "urban light" development includes a walkable "Main Street" of offices and eateries, a central village green and narrow streets of densely packed houses and three-story town homes.
- A phenomenon that reappears like clockwork when real estate sours, short sales now make up almost one in four home sales across ailing segments of the Sacramento market.
Chelsea Irvine, 27, works last month on her first house, a fixer-upper in Sacramento. The legislative assistant for a lobbying firm blogged about her months-long short-sale odyssey that ended successfully in July. "I love the house. It's one of the reasons I stuck with it," she said.
- Homeowner owes more than the house is worth. The homeowner does not need to be facing a foreclosure to do a short sale. Some lenders require the seller to be facing a financial hardship, however. - Michael Lyon, 54, has been the consummate businessman, the man who guided the growth of a small real estate firm into a multimillion-dollar operation, the area's largest with 950 agents.
Michael Lyon
- Uncertainty hangs over 1,000 employees of North Highlands loan servicer HomEq today – and also the larger regional economy – as Ocwen Loan Servicing takes over after announcing plans to close the firm.
An employee enters the parking lot of HomEq in North Highlands on Tuesday. The company's sale has created fears of layoffs.
- A couple from Georgetown are looking forward to moving into the notorious Dorothea Puente boardinghouse in Sacramento.
Tom Williams and his wife, Barbara Holmes, had looked at a Victorian next to boardinghouse where Dorothea Puente killed tenants, then they ended up buying the notorious site.
- Sacramento County law enforcement officials are investigating a prominent real estate businessman in connection with allegations he made secret video recordings of houseguests and others in bedrooms and bathrooms through cameras concealed in clock radios and behind vents, The Bee has learned.
Michael Lyon
- In a first of its kind in California, the Sacramento Association of Realtors will give qualified homebuyers $2,000 in cash to help make energy-efficient improvements. - Home sales tumbled sharply across the Sacramento region in July as government tax credits that had prodded thousands of buyers off the fence largely expired. - Latino homeowners have taken the harshest blow from California's foreclosure crisis, accounting for 48 percent of homes repossessed from late 2006 through 2009, a nonprofit consumer group reported Tuesday. - California's once-mighty home building industry has seen its economic impact downsized 80 percent since 2005, the California Homebuilding Foundation and Center for Strategic Economic Research said Monday. - An alleged $11.4 million Sacramento real estate fraud scheme that promised investors up to 15 percent returns from land development and house flipping has resulted in charges against eight people for mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, the U.S. attorney's office said Friday. - More than 42,000 laid-off California homeowners are about to get a break. - The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, aiming to corral more scammers preying on struggling area homeowners, announced an expansion of its real estate fraud unit Monday.
